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Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers

About

Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) are systems that provide you with information on toxic substances emitted every year into air, water or land. PRTRs show on interactive maps the different sources of pollution, such as industries (point sources), agriculture and transportation (non-point sources).

PRTRs provide users with free access to information on environmental emissions, enhancing transparency and accountability of industry by providing geographic locations of facilities that release pollutants. PRTRs represent an incentive for finding innovative solutions that can reduce pollution and lead to sustainable increase in productivity, facilitate compliance with environmental standards and international agreements, and create a regular reporting of national data on emissions into the environment and transfers of hazardous waste.

Projects

Global Environment Facility

UNITAR is currently executing a global project, in cooperation with UN Environment, to implement fully operational PRTR systems in Belarus, Cambodia, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Peru, and showcase these systems as effective tools to report releases to the environment of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) as part of the Stockholm Convention.

Quick Start Programme Trust Fund

The project “Strengthening Capacities for Developing a National Pollutant Release and Transfer (PRTR) in Support of SAICM Implementation in Mongolia", jointly implemented by UNITAR and the Ministry of Environment and Tourism of Mongolia started in March 2018, with the financial support of SAICM QSP Trust Fund. The aim of the project is to build PRTR knowledge and capacity in order to pilot test the system in the city of Ulaanbaatar, where level of pollution can be very high in particular during winter.